Educational Science

Coastal Cities Could Flood 3 Times a Week by 2045

The lawns of homes purchased this year in vast swaths of coastal America could regularly be underwater before the mortgage has even been paid off, with new research showing high tide flooding could become nearly incessant in places within 30 years. Such floods could occur several times a week on...

Mysterious East Coast Flooding Caused by Weird Wind Patterns

Mysterious flooding and high tides along the East Coast in 2009 and 2010 now have an explanation: a major change in the Atlantic Ocean's wind patterns and warm-water currents. At the time, the unusually high tides caught people by surprise. Now, researchers know why the ocean was flooding beaches and...

A NASA animation shows the atmospheric river's rainfall over California and the West Coast from Jan. 7 to Jan. 10. (Image credit: Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory)A different kind of river has been winding over California in recent weeks: NASA satellites spied a so-called atmospheric river passing over the state, bringing...

Supermoon's High Tides Strand Octopus in Flooded Parking Garage

Coal mines have the canary, endangered species have the panda bear, melting ice has the polar bear, and now sea level rise has … the octopus? Climate change's impact on sea levels has made tidal flooding in Miami more severe, according to scientists. After the supermoon earlier this month triggered...

Expect Downpours and Flooding As World Warms

Umbrella and galosh manufacturers may do well as the planet continues to warm — if they can find somewhere dry to build their factories. Findings of a new analysis of storm data and model projections warn that flooding is going to be a worsening problem around the world, with a...

More Floods Hitting Midwest States

Floods have become more frequent in the central United States over the past 50 years, a new study finds. However, even though the events are striking more often, floods aren't bigger in size, said study co-author Gabriele Villarini, a hydrologist at the University of Iowa. It's not that the largest...

What's Causing Louisiana's Historic Flooding?

Tremendous downpours have inundated parts of Louisiana over the last few days, resulting in disastrous flooding and forcing thousands of people from their homes. But what's causing this historic flooding in areas that rarely receive such significant rainfall days? An inland sheared tropical depression is how the National Oceanic and...

Dragons and Magical Dirt: Legendary 'Great Flood' Left Real Evidence

With the help of a channel-digging dragon and magical, water-absorbing dirt, the legendary Emperor Yu is said to have saved China from a Great Flood that lasted thousands of years. While this tale is the stuff of myths, with plenty of embellishments added through the years, geologists are finding that...

Great Molasses Flood of 1919: Why This Deluge of Goo Was So Deadly

A bubbling flood of molasses that sent a towering wave of goo down the streets of Boston in 1919, catching everything from horses to humans in its sticky grasp, killing 21 people, injuring 150 more and flattening buildings in its wake. Now, scientists have figured out why the deluge of...

Icebergs Sailed to Florida on Ice Age Floods

Imagine icebergs as tall as the Eiffel Tower silently drifting by Florida's balmy beaches. Add a few braying walruses, and mammoths grazing nearby on a broad coastal plain, and there's Ice Age Florida for you. And believe it or not, the icebergs are among the most indisputable parts of this...